Faded Silver
by Ash the Aura Guardian
Summary: "Today was the day Sakata Gintoki was declared dead, but to almost everyone in the world, it was just another day…" Kagura reflects on the day that silver light disappeared from her world, and how every day has been darker ever since. Pre Kanketsu-hen: Be Forever Yorozuya, one-sided GinKagu


**Since I was bored, I decided to finally write another story. For some reason, I decided to write a Gintama story. This one takes place before Kanketsu-hen: Be Forever Yorozuya, and is about Kagura's feelings 5 years after Gintoki's disappearance, and some of what I think might've happened during that time. It's a bit (maybe even extremely) OOC, but I felt like I had to write it.**

**Note: 'gero' means 'vomit'. Gintoki frequently calls Kagura a 'gero'ine, because she (according to him) is a terrible main heroine.**

**Note 2: 'Ketsu no Ana' means 'asshole' in Japanese. If you didn't know this already, I have no idea how you enjoyed the show.**

**x - x - x**

Another day, another group of hoodlums to pulverize.

Another run-in with Shinpachi.

Another argument over who should take over _his_ legacy.

Another visit to a grave she wished never existed.

Another return to the same empty apartment, sending Sadaharu off by himself so she could have a few moments to pick up the broken pieces of her soul.

Today was the day Sakata Gintoki was declared dead, but to almost everyone in the world, it was just another day…except her, and a few others.

As Kagura sat on the floor of her barebones apartment, she again cursed life for dealing her such a bad hand. Sometimes, she wondered if she'd been born under a cursed star. First, her mother. Then, her father and brother. She thought she could escape it all when she escaped to the blue planet her mother always talked about, but nothing improved. In fact, it was a lonely, meager existence. Back then, she'd rather be on her sad excuse of a 'home planet' than the seedy hellhole full of a species who hated her and a sun that burned her skin off. It felt like she was meant to have nobody to call family, no place to call 'home'.

Then, she met him.

He was loud, crass and extremely lazy. He liked pachinko and drinking way too much. He didn't have a sense of responsibility. He never paid her or Shinpachi on time, if ever. He never paid rent either. He was obsessed with Jump way more than any adult should be. He had a natural perm, and the dead eyes of a living corpse.

He was also the kindest person she'd ever met. He took in a stray who had nowhere else to go. He gave her a family, a home she could come back to. He was her father, her big brother, even her mother…whatever she'd lost, he tried to give back. He surrounded her with people who loved and cared for her. He took Sadaharu in when he could barely afford to feed himself. He gave her everything she needed to move on from the family who abandoned her. He even helped get her father back, when he finally decided to show up. Damn baldy. Plus, his eyes held their own charm; especially how they sparkled when he ate something sweet. And, she could admit to herself, he was actually pretty good-looking; especially when he was protecting someone.

Sakata Gintoki was, in her eyes, the greatest hero in the universe. It wasn't because he'd put his life at great peril to protect anyone in front of him. It wasn't because he'd saved the Earth multiple times.

No, it was because he was _her_ hero. He was the silver light who healed her and brightened her dark world.

When the tears came, she let them flow freely. It was a fight she wouldn't win, she knew. She'd been trying for 5 years, ever since his disappearance, to stop these tears. To move past his absence, and the loss of the only family she'd really known after her father and brother left her. She knew that's what he'd want. He wouldn't want her scraping by on a rotting world, trying to keep a 'legacy' he didn't care about, and a planet that was already dead, alive. But how does one move on from losing their world? All she could do was wait for him, keeping his home, and the Yorozuya, alive for him to come back to.

She still remembered the day it started. They'd received a request to deal with the 'movie thief', an amanto (at least, she thought it was one) with a camcorder for a head. Of course, it was an S/M porn film. They dealt with things in their usual style, with their usual shenanigans. Gin-chan, as always, got sidetracked and actually started _helping_ the movie thief, joining its ridiculous routine with his own camera. Then, Gin-chan left with the thief to 'check' the footage it recorded. But then, minutes later, he came back without the movie thief…with terror in his eyes. Neither of them realized at the time, but it wasn't the awful porn; the look in his eyes was that of a man who knew the world could end at any time.

Since then, Gin-chan was never the same. Things were about as normal as they'd always been, but he had a look of guilt and deep pain within, as if he was struggling with something. Of course, both her and Shinpachi were too distracted with everything. Gin-chan clearly did his best to make sure they didn't notice, hiding it all beneath his ridiculous antics. Kagura now wondered just how much of his idiocy was him distracting others from the pain he kept hidden within himself

One day, Gin-chan did something he never did; he told them he'd won big at pachinko, and took them both for dinner. As usual, they fought over the food, playing silly mindgames to get the best piece and, potentially, monopolize most of the food for themselves. Again, they didn't notice that for once, Gin-chan didn't participate the way he would, acting more as a third party, helping either her or Shinpachi depending on his mood. When they questioned him about it, he just told them he would go out for a drink later anyway, and for now would just enjoy the sight of the unwashed masses fighting over scraps. Even when they knocked him out of his chair, he didn't seem to mind it all that much.

Later that night, Gin-chan disappeared.

At first, they thought he'd just had way too much to drink and had probably found his way into a cardboard box with Madao. Then, hours turned into days and they started to get worried. They started looking for him. Days turned into weeks, and they were starting to get extremely frantic. Even the Shinsengumi and Joui patriots got roped in. The Yorozuya stopped taking requests. Finally, weeks turned into months…and the White Plague made its way to Earth. People started dying in the hundreds, thousands, and then millions. Only when the world started to collapse did the Shinsengumi find Gin-chan's notebook. When they read it for the first time, Kagura and Shinpachi realized why Gin-chan had changed. He already knew about the White Plague, and he'd realized that if he left to fix it, he might never come back. Even then, he left on his own. The bit about poisoned mushrooms, and taking an eternal potty break, were of course complete nonsense. They knew it was his way of giving them one final joke to laugh at.

That night, Kagura cried for the first time.

As the months after that passed, Shinpachi started to change. He stopped listening to his Otsuu-chan collection. He got serious about training, and stopped showing up. And whenever she saw him, she noticed that he never laughed. Of course, she knew what was going through his mind. If they'd been stronger, more dependable, could they have stopped Gin-chan from disappearing? She'd had those thoughts herself. She'd spent so many nights cursing her own uselessness, wondering if Gin-chan would've been with them if she was less of a burden. Maybe he would've taken her and stopped the plague. Maybe he'd be here, with his family…where he belonged. So, she decided to stop acting like a brat. She would get stronger. She would grow up. When Gin-chan returned, he would find her, stronger and mature. She would be the partner Sakata Gintoki could depend on.

After two years of fruitless searches, the Last Samurai, Sakata Gintoki, was declared dead.

She still remembered his 'funeral'. At first, she tried to stop it from happening. She believed, as she does to this day, that Gin-chan is alive and fighting to save the world. However, she knew the others needed it, so she backed off. Contrary to what most people expected, it was a massive state funeral. The Shogun himself organized it, to honor 'one of his close friends and most loyal retainers'. The few who knew about Gin-chan's true identity could see the irony. The man who used to be the most dangerous Joui patriot, known as the White Demon, was honored by the Bakufu itself. It warmed Kagura's heart to see so many people in attendance. Even Sho-chan and Soyo-chan were in attendance, both deciding to die with Edo rather than run away. The entire Shinsengumi was there, along with almost everyone whose life had been touched by Gin-chan's silver light. The funeral was broadcast across the universe, and she hoped wherever Gin-chan was, he could see just how many lives he'd made better, and how much the world truly appreciated it.

Unfortunately, it was also the day the Yorozuya split.

When she saw Shinpachi that day, she could hardly recognize him. Dressed in black, carrying Gin-chan's bokuto and a real katana, he looked like a completely different person. His eyes looked dark and angry, like he hated the entire world. However, she could see the sadness buried deep within. It was obvious that the person inside him was starting to wither away. Of course, the same could be said about her. Just like him, she'd decided to not show up in traditional funeral attire. Instead, she was in her new outfit; one she'd cobbled together with one of Gin-chan's yukatas, designed to resemble both her old outfit and Gin-chan's own personal style. She still clung on to the childish hope that somehow, Gin-chan would show up at his own funeral, having already solved the White Plague, either horrified that he'd already been killed off despite being the 'protagonist', or inflating his own ego because of the massive funeral being held in his honor. When he saw her, he wouldn't believe it. He'd see how strong she's become, and how mature she is now. Maybe he'd even look at their outfits and accuse them of trying to 'replace Gin-san' with their 'unfair upgrades'. Maybe, just maybe…he'd even appreciate how good-looking she'd become?

From Shinpachi's clear disappointment when the funeral ended, it was clear that he clung on to the same hope that she did. After the funeral, they decided to visit Snack Otose, which is where everything went to hell. They argued about the direction the Yorozuya should take, said some words neither of them truly meant, and that was the end of them working together. It was also the day Kagura moved out of the old Yorozuya headquarters, and decided to live in a derelict building. The memories just cut too deep. She took Gin-chan's futon with her, which she'd started using ever since she realized he wasn't coming back anytime soon. It was the only way she could still sleep these days. Besides, if Gin-chan wanted it, he could come take it from her.

The night she left was also the night she lost her rival. While patrolling the neighborhood, she ran into the Super Sadist for the first time in months. While he tried to hide it, she could clearly see that he'd cried that day. And, as she'd already deduced, he wanted to blow off some steam by fighting one of the few people who could keep up with him.

And so, they fought.

When she fought him, she saw just how much he'd progressed. He'd done well to maintain his level as one of the strongest in the Shinsengumi. However, the longer they fought, the more control she lost. She started pushing him back. And then, she heard Gin-chan's name from his lips. At the time, she wasn't quite sure he said. He was just telling her how proud Gin-chan would be of both her and Shinpachi. However, just that name…it was enough to break her already short fuse. Only when a familiar bokuto crashed into her umbrella did she come back to her senses, and the sight in front of her was terrifying.

Behind Shinpachi, she saw Okita lying in a pool of his own blood. Both his arms looked broken, his head was bleeding profusely, and one of his eyes was swollen shut. The one eye he had open was wide with terror. In one of his broken arms was the hilt of a shattered katana. Shinpachi's own eyes held fury in them. As he pushed her back, she realized just how badly she'd screwed up. As she called Sadaharu to carry her away, she realized that she'd nearly killed someone, losing her rival and her last family on Earth. Nobody would want to associate with a monster like her. She barely realized how badly her own body was hurt, sliced up by Okita's sword and horribly beat up from her breaking through her restraints and abusing her body to its limits. As she reached her apartment, she fainted on Sadaharu's back, crying about both her injuries and everything she'd lost. After that day, she'd avoided Okita like the plague.

Myseriously, when she woke up in the morning, she was wrapped in bandages, with hot eggs-on-rice and sukonbu waiting for her. To this day, she had no idea who treated her injuries and made her food from ingredients she didn't even have, especially since nobody was supposed to know where she went.

After the funeral, it seemed like people around her had given up on Gin-chan being alive. However, she, to this day, refuses to accept that he's dead. Gin-chan wouldn't be killed off by some stupid plague; he wouldn't be killed off by _anything_. He can, and will, beat everything that came at him. He is, after all, the protagonist who saves everyone. And the world needs to be saved. _She_ needs to be saved.

Someday, he'll definitely show up. When all odds are stacked against them, when it looks like the world is truly beyond salvation, he'll show up picking his nose, flick a booger at the bad guy, and say something extremely cool and inspiring. Then, he'd fix the plague and find a way to turn everything back to normal. He'd also see how she'd grown up from that 'gero'ine, and turned into a 'cool beauty tsundere', surpassing even Tsukki. Maybe he'd even begin seeing her as more than the little nuisance he needed to protect.

Yes, she has feelings for the one person who has seemingly sworn himself to celibacy unless it's for Ketsuno Ana's _ketsu no ana._

She wasn't sure she could call what she felt 'love'. After all, her father said he loved her mother. He was unable to save her, running away from his duty as a father and husband to play 'alien hunter'. When she died, he left her, his only daughter, alone with her unstable brother. He didn't protect her or her brother, their mother's only legacy, from anything. Kamui ended up hating him, and Kagura ran away from her own home.

She, on the other hand, scoured the entire Earth for any clue about where Gin-chan might've went off to. And while looking for him, she still protected his legacy, his Yorozuya, for the day he returns. Even if everyone on this dying planet left, even if Shinpachi gave up, she'd wait for the day he returned, to cover him in a warm blanket after he blacks out on the floor after drinking himself halfway to death.

And if he truly was gone forever…she'd tear this world, this _universe_, apart to bring him back. Even if she had to risk everything, she'd do it if she could have him back.

Love, she found, was very weak.

If only it didn't take him disappearing for her to realize that…if only she realized when he was still here, where she could thank him for everything he's done for her, everything he'd given her despite not having very much himself…

When it was time for Sadaharu to return from his walk, she quickly dried her tears and changed out of her tear-stained dress. As she went to prepare her futon, only one thought went through her head.

_'Tomorrow'_, she promised herself, as she did every day since she realized he'd vanished. Tomorrow would be the day she found her light, her silver soul, and brought it back.

**x - x- x**

**Next day, Gintoki arrives 5 years into the future via Time Travel.**

**If I feel like it, I might write an AU sequel of sorts, maybe with Kagura finding out Chin-san was Gintoki all along, or something else. I might even expand on stuff like what happened on Gintoki's 'funeral', if there's any interest.**


End file.
